1 Syrians flee cities: Thousands of people have fled government-held Syrian cities after opposition fighters warned they will attack during next week's presidential election to disrupt the vote, opposition activists said Friday. The government presents the June 3 polls, in which President Bashar Assad is widely expected to secure a third seven-year term, as a means to end the 3-year-old conflict that has killed more than 160,000 people. The Syrian opposition and its Western allies have denounced the vote as a farce.

2 Yemen clashes: Clashes between Shiite rebels and tribesmen backed by national army units in Yemen have killed at least 12 people, security officials said Friday. Officials said that fighting resumed when Hawthi rebels attacked a checkpoint and two locations where tribesmen from the Islamist Islah Party had gathered in the city of Amran, northwest of the capital, Sanaa. The Hawthis waged a six-year insurgency in the north, which officially ended in 2010. But the group recently has clashed with Sunni ultraconservatives. The Hawthis, who belong to the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, accuse the ultraconservatives of trying to spread their school of thought in their strongholds.

3 "Honor killing": Pakistani police said Friday that they have arrested four more people in connection with the killing of a pregnant woman who was beaten to death by her family for marrying without their permission. The police arrested the four men late Thursday said a police spokesman in Lahore. Police have already arrested the woman's father and say he has confessed to the killing. They are looking for two of her brothers. The 25-year-old was on her way to court with her husband on Tuesday when they were attacked by a group of her relatives who objected to her marriage. During the assault she was hit on the head with bricks from a nearby construction site and died.

4 Malaysia kidnapping: A Chinese tourist and a Filipino worker have been rescued nearly two months after they were abducted from a resort off Borneo island, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Friday. Najib said no ransom was paid. Malaysian officials earlier said the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of $11.4 million for the Chinese hostage. Gunmen, believed to be Philippine Abu Sayyaf militants, kidnapped the 28-year-old Shanghai woman and the 40-year-old Filipino woman from a resort in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah on April 2. They were believed to have been taken to the southern Philippines.

5 Ebola deaths: Health officials in Sierra Leone say there have been two deaths from Ebola and a dozen other cases of the deadly disease. The deaths follow an outbreak in neighboring Guinea that also led to cases in Liberia earlier this year. It was the first crisis of its kind in West Africa. Ebola causes a high fever and severe bleeding. The mortality rate has been close to 70 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

6 American suicide bomber: The State Department confirmed Friday that a U.S. citizen from Florida launched a suicide bombing against Syrian government troops earlier this week in what is believed to be the first time an American has been involved in such attacks since the start of the Syrian civil war. Abu Hurayra al-Amriki reportedly carried out a May 25 truck bombing outside a restaurant in the government-held northwestern city of Idlib. It's unknown how many people al-Amriki killed in the bombing.